Economy Slowdown Not to Impact Smartphones in India: Xiaomi

With economic slowdown beginning to adversely affect several industries in India, Xiaomi India said on Wednesday that smartphone sales would remain insulated from the impact as the festive season inches closer.

The India smartphone market saw its highest-ever shipment of 36.9 million in the second quarter (Q2) of 2019 -- with 9.9 per cent year-on-year (YoY) and 14.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

"We keep hearing regarding the economic slowdown at the macro level. From our perspective, we rely on third-party agencies to understand in which direction the market is heading," Raghu Reddy, Head of Categories and Online Sales, Xiaomi India, told IANS here.

"We have seen smartphone market growing at over 8-9 per cent in the first half of the year and based on these figures, we expect same growth, even more, in the upcoming festive season," Reddy added.

According to the IDC, Xiaomi saw its shipment volume grow by 4.8 per cent (YoY) in Q2. The Chinese smartphone maker led the market with 28.3 per cent market share, followed by Samsung at 25.3 per cent.

"People cannot live without smartphones. If an existing phone stops working, one would buy a new one. We believe it would be the last sector to get impacted,' said Reddy, adding that not just smartphones, but Xiaomi TVs would also do well in terms of sales.

According to the IDC, Xiaomi's smartphones ranked first in India in terms of shipments for eight consecutive quarters.

"We had a good start in the TV segment with shipping 2 million TVs. According to IDC, we have 14 per cent share of the smart TV market in India and hopefully, this trend would continue for us," Reddy told IANS.
In terms of smart TV shipments, Xiaomi ranked 1st in India for five consecutive quarters as of the second quarter this year.

On camera war, he said that Xiaomi launched its first first 48MP camera phone in Redmi Note 7 Pro six month ago and "with Mi A3, we have taken 48MP camera to a brand new level".

Mi A3 houses a triple-camera setup at the back which includes Sony's 48MP IMX586 primary sensor, an 8MP untra-wide sensor and a 2MP depth sensor.

"Camera is an important point where consumer need to upgrade. If a manufacturer offers a better camera phone, it catches the customers' imagination. Camera is an important direction in which most of the smartphone manufacturers are moving," the Xiaomi executive elaborated.